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Port Details

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  I�ve had a few family members and friends ask me about my port so I thought I�d explain, in more detail, what it is.   Mine looks like this: It�s placed in my chest like this: The port was surgically implanted just under my skin so that there�s a half-walnut-shell hump and the three small bumps (on the round center of the port) that can be felt on the right side of my chest.   The round part of the port is made of a dense piece of silicone.  From the port there is a tube that runs up toward my collarbone, then turns and enters a vein that goes directly to my heart � the superior vena cava to be specific. When my care providers need access to my circulatory system (to get a blood sample, give me medications or chemo, etc.), they simply push a specially designed needle, (with tubing), into my skin in the center of the three small bumps.   The needle goes into the silicone and into a small reservoir of my blood. So, for example, when I receive chemo, the me...
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CT Scans #4, Update

For the last few years, I have been on a low dose blood pressure lowering medication.  My dad had high blood pressure, so I wasn't surprised when I, too, was diagnosed.  Monitoring blood pressure is simple.  Whenever I think about it, I use the home BP monitoring device I bought at Walgreens which precisely measures my BP and heart rate. I write down the results on a table my internist gave me and once a year, he looks at it and makes dosing adjustments, if necessary.  Unlike BP medications, it's not possible to know if chemotherapeutic agents are working without periodic imaging studies, such as CT scans, which can't be done at home. I go to the hospital and from the time I check-in until I walk out, it's a 2-hour appointment.  I start getting nervous a few days before the tests until I hear the results. The way it works is that we cancer patients dutifully get chemotherapy, either by IV infusion or, as in my case, orally for several weeks or a few months. ...
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Thanks, Xalkori

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     It's nearly impossible for me to believe it's already mid-April of 2016!  Since January, life has been a whirlwind of good and not-so-good things.  I've come to realize that whether it's good times or bad times, being busy is being busy.  Time escapes me.          Today has been a good...no...let me start again...Today has been a GREAT day, so I'm not going to whine about anything.  Springtime in Chicago is unpredictable - sunny and warm or cold and snowy, in the same day.  This spring has been predictably unpredictable, but today in Chicago was beautiful . Although it was a little windy on Michigan Avenue, it was sunny and the temperature was around 50 degrees.      I got to do one of my favorite things today.  Wynn and I took our day off and made our way to the Art Institute to see a special exhibit:     Van Gogh's Bedrooms      http://www.artic.e...
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